Basic Handling

This page is designed to give an overview of basic handling when using the AEM author environment. It uses the
Sites
console as a basis.

Some functionality is not available in all consoles and additional functionality may be available in some consoles. Specific information about the individual consoles and their related functionality will be covered in more detail on other pages.

Getting Started

A Touch-Enabled UI

AEM's user interface has been enabled for touch. A touch-enabled interface allows you to use touch to interact with the software through gestures such as tap, touch-and-hold, and swipe. This is in contrast to how a traditional desktop interface operates with mouse actions such as click, double-click, right-click, and mouseover.

As the AEM UI is touch-enabled, you can use the touch gestures on your touch devices (for example, mobile or tablet) and the mouse actions on a traditional desktop device.

First Steps

Immediately after logging in you arrive on the
Navigation panel
. Selecting one of the options opens the respective console.

To get a good understanding of the basic use of AEM, this document is based on the
Sites
console.

Click or tap on
Sites
to get started.

Product Navigation

Whenever a user first accesses a console, a product navigation tutorial is started. Take a minute to click or tap through to get a good overview of the basic handling of AEM.

Click or tap
Next
to advance to the next page of the overview. Click or tap
Close
or click or tap outside of the overview dialog to close.

The overview will restart the next time you access a console unless you either view all slides, or check the option
Don't show this again
.

Global Navigation

You can navigate between the consoles using the global navigation panel. This is triggered as a full-screen drop down when you click or tap the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top-left of the screen.

You can close the global navigation panel by clicking or tapping
Close
to return to your previous location.

When you first login you presented with the
Navigation
panel.

Global navigation has two panels, represented by icons at the left-margin of the screen:

Screens
will allow you to manage all your customer-facing screens, of any size and in any location.

Sites

The Sites consoles let you
create, view and manage websites
running on your AEM instance. Through these consoles you can create, edit, copy, move and delete website pages, start workflows, and publish pages.

Tools Panel

In the Tools panel, each option in the side panel contains a range of sub-menus. The
Tools consoles
available here provide access to a number of specialized tools and consoles that help you administer your websites, digital assets and other aspects of your content repository.

The Header

The header is always present at the top of the screen. While most options in the header remain the same no matter where you are in the system, some are context-specific.

The options presented depend on your current console. For example, in
Sites
you can select content only (the default), the timeline, references or filter side panel.

Breadcrumbs

Situated in the middle of the rail, and always showing the description of the currently selected item, the breadcrumbs allow you to navigate within a specific console. In the Sites console, you can navigate through the levels of your website.

Simply click on the breadcrumb text to display a drop-down listing the levels of the hierarchy of the currently selected item. Click on an entry to jump to that location.

Analytics time period selection

This is available in list view only. See
list view
for more information.

Create
button

Once clicked, the options displayed are appropriate to the console/context.

The view icon is at the far right of the AEM toolbar. As it also indicates the current view, it changes. For example, in the default view,
Column View
it shows:

You can switch between column view, card view, and list view; in the list view it also shows the view settings.

Keyboard navigation

You can navigate a website using only the keyboard. This uses the standard browser functionality of the
TAB
key (or
OPT+TAB
) to move you between elements on the page that are
focusable
.

In the
Sites
console there is the added option to
Skip to main content
. This becomes visible as you
tab
through the header options, and speeds your navigation by allowing you to skip the standard elements in the (product) toolbar and taking you directly to the main content.

Accessing Help

There are various help resources available:

Console Toolbar

Depending on your location the
Help
icon will open the appropriate resources:

Due to the space restrictions in some windows, the toolbar can quickly become longer than the space available. When this happens additional options appears. Clicking or tapping on the ellipsis (the three dots or
...
) opens a drop down selector holding all remaining actions. For example, after selecting a page in the
Sites
console:

The individual icons available are documented in relation to the appropriate console/feature/scenario.

Quick Actions

In
Card View
certain actions are available as quick action icons as well as being on the toolbar. Quick action icons are available for a single item at a time and eliminate the need for you to preselect.

The quick actions are visible when you mouseover (desktop device) a resource card. The quick actions available can depend on the console and context. For example, here are the quick actions for a page in the
Sites
console:

Viewing and Selecting Resources

Viewing, navigating, and selecting are each conceptually the same across all views, but have small variations in handling, dependent on the view you are using.

You can view, navigate through, and select (for further action) your resources with any of the available views, each of which can be selected by the icon at the top right:

By default, AEM Assets does not display the original renditions of assets in the UI as thumbnails in any of the views. If you are an administrator, you can use overlays to configure AEM Assets to display original renditions as thumbnails.

Selecting Resources

Selecting a specific resource is dependent on a combination of the view and the device:

Select

Unselect

Column View

Desktop:
Click the thumbnail

Mobile device:
Tap the thumbnail

Desktop:
Click the thumbnail

Mobile device:
Tap the thumbnail

Card View

Desktop:
Mouseover, then use the checkmark quick action

Mobile device:
Tap-and-hold the card

Desktop:
Click the card

Mobile device:
Tap the card

List View

Desktop:
Click the thumbnail

Mobile device:
Tap the thumbnail

Desktop:
Click the thumbnail

Mobile device:
Tap the thumbnail

Select All

You can select all items in any view by clicking the
Select All
option at the top-right corner of the console.

In
Card View
all cards are selected.

In
List View
all items in the list are seelcted.

In
Column View
all items in the leftmost column are selected.

Deselecting All

In all cases as you select items, the count of the items selected is displayed at the top-right of the toolbar.

You can deselect all items and exit selection mode by either:

clicking or tapping the
X
next to the count,

or using
escape
.

In all views, all items can be deslected by tapping escape on the keyboard if you are using a desktop device.

Selecting Example

For example in card view:

Once you have selected a resource the top header is covered by the
actions toolbar
that provides access to actions currently applicable to the selected resource.

To exit selection mode select the
X
to the top-right, or use
escape
.

Column View

The column view allows for a visual navigation of a content tree through a series of cascading columns. This view allows you to visualize and traverse the tree structure of your website.

Selecting a resource in the leftmost column will display the child resources in a column to the right. Selecting a resource in the right column will then display the child resources in another column to the right and so on.

You can navigate up and down in the tree by tapping or clicking on the resource name or the chevron to the right of the resource name.

The resource name and chevron will be highlighted when tapped or clicked.

The children of the clicked/tapped resource are displayed in the column to the right of the clicked/tapped resource.

If you tap or click on a resource name that has no children, its details will be displayed in the final column.

Tapping or clicking on the thumbnail selects the resource.

When selected, a checkmark will be overlaid on the thumbnail and the resource name will be highlighted as well.

The details of the selected resource will be shown in the final column.

The action toolbar will become available.

When a page is selected in column view, the selected page is displayed in the final colum along with the following details:

Page title

Page name (part of the page's URL)

Template the page is based on

Modification details

Page language

Publication details

Card View

Card view displays information cards for each item at the current level. These provide information such as:

A visual representation of the page content.

The page title.

Important dates (such as last edited, last published).

If the page is locked, hidden or part of a livecopy.

If appropriate, when you are required to take action as part of a workflow.

Markers that indicate required actions may be related to entries in your
Inbox
.

Quick actions
are also available in this view such as selection and common actions such as edit.

You can navigate down the tree by tapping/clicking on cards (taking care to avoid the quick actions) or up again by using the
breadcrumbs in the header
.

List View

The list view lists information for each resource at the current level.

You can navigate down through the tree by tapping/clicking on the resource name and back up by using the
breadcrumbs in the header
.

To easily select all items in the list, use the checkbox at the top-left of the list.

When all items in the list are selected, this checkbox appears checked.

Click or tap the checkbox to deselect all.

When only some items are selected, it appears with a minus sign.

Click or tap the checkbox to select all.

Click or tap the checkbox again to deselect all.

Select the columns to be shown using
View Settings
option located under the Views button. The following columns are available for display:

Name
- Page name, which can be useful in a multilingual authoring environment since it is part of the page's URL and does not change regardless of language

Modified
- Last modified date and last modified by user

Published
- Publication status

Template
- Template on which the page is based

Workflow
- Workflow currently applied to the page. More information is available when you mouseover, or open Timeline.

Page analytics

Unique visitors

Time on page

By default the
Name
column is shown, which makes up part of the URL for the page. In some cases the author might need to access pages that are in a different language and seeing the name of the page (which usually is unchanging) can be of great help if the author does not know the language of the page.

Change the order of items using the dotted vertical bar at the far right of each item in the list.

Changing the order works only within an ordered folder that has
jcr:primaryType
value as
sling:OrderedFolder
.

Click or tap on the vertical selection bar and drag the item to a new position in the list.

You can display Analytics Data by showing the appropriate columns using the
View Settings
dialogue.

You can filter Analytics Data for the past 30, 90, or 365 days using the filter options on the right side of the header.

Rail Selector

The
Rail Selector
is available at the top-left of the window and displays options depending on your current consoles.

For example, in Sites you can select content only (the default), content tree, the timeline, references, or filter side panel.

If content only is selected, then only the rail icon appears. When any other option is selected, the option name appears next to the rail icon.

Content tree

The content tree can be used to quickly navigate the site hierarchy within the side panel and view much information about the pages in the current folder.

Using the content tree side panel in conjunction with a list view or cards view, users can easily see the hierarchical structure of the project and navigate easily across the content structure with the content tree side-panel, as well as view detailed page information in the list view.

Once an entry in the hierarchy view is selected, arrow keys can be used to quickly navigate the hierarchy.

Add/view comments
about the selected item. The
Comment
box is shown at the bottom of the list of events. Typing a comment followed by Return will register the comment. It is shown when
Comments
or
Show All
is selected.

Specific consoles have additional functionality. For example, in the Sites console you can: